Six decades In, Goodman Gallery reflects on its role in art and society
On a weekday afternoon in Johannesburg, the doors of Goodman Gallery are open in the way they have been for decades. Inside, a new exhibition by Hank Willis Thomas fills the space. For Liza Essers, it is a familiar kind of milestone.
“He’s actually the first artist that I took on when I took over the gallery,” she tells me. “We’ve been working together for about 17 years.”
There’s something fitting about that continuity. As Goodman Gallery approaches its 60th anniversary, the story is not only about longevity but about the accumulation of relationships, decisions and positions taken over time. These relationships have shaped what the gallery has become six decades into its existence.
Founded in 1966, amid apartheid, Goodman Gallery opened at a time when South Africa’s cultural institutions were largely segregated.
From the beginning, it refused that logic, exhibiting artists of all races and creating a space that challenged the exclusions of the moment. Over time, it became associated with artists who would come to define 20th-century South African art.
The history anchors the gallery today, even as its footprint has expanded far beyond Johannesburg.
